Schools Effect on Gifted Students Is Most Negative, Study Finds

Orlando, Fla--A 12-year-old who has an exceptional talent for, and
consuming interest in, mathematics spends as much time solving
equations each week as most students his age spend watching
television.

That talent, however, according to a newly released study by
Benjamin S. Bloom, professor of education at the University of Chicago,
was probably fostered by years of encouragement from parents and
"special teachers" employed as tutors, rather than the schools.

The schools, if they have an influence at all, according to Mr.
Bloom, are more likely to be a detriment than a help in developing a
child's exceptional talent.

Mr. Bloom's findings were presented for the first time last week at
the National Topical Conference on the Gifted and Talented Child held
here and jointly sponsored by the Council of Exceptional Children and
the Association for the Gifted. The study, "The Limits of Learning,"
involved as subjects 120 individuals who demonstrated extremely high
levels of accomplishment in some field before the age of 35. Among
those he studied were a concert pianist, a research mathematician, an
Olympic swimmer, and a neurologist.

Mr. Bloom conducted retrospective interviews with them and with
their parents in an attempt to determine what factors contribute to the
development of exceptional talent. He looked at three broad areas: the
role of homes, schools, and teachers; the patterns of talent
development; and the question of whether these individuals are so rare
that they are "almost a special type of human being."

His findings on the first subject area, which were the topic of his
address last week, suggest that parents rather than schools exert the
most powerful influence on persons with a particular talent who turn
out to be exceptional.

Many of the study's subjects came from families in which one or both
parents had a strong personal interest in the child's area of interest.
And the parents, who may not have been unusually accomplished in the
area of the child's ability, nevertheless provided a strong "model" as
someone who valued and appreciated the activity. All kinds of talents,
Mr. Bloom said, were rewarded and encouraged by the parents, and they
regarded the development of talent as a natural activity.

Schools, in contrast, often provided an environment that was the
opposite of the home environment described by the talented individual,
the researcher said. The home offered a relaxed atmosphere in which the
child could explore and "play" with the activity. The school often
provided a highly structured environment that Mr. Bloom suggested
discouraged creative growth.

Long-Range Perspective

Parents and special instructors of the talented child taught him as
an individual, and considered the material being taught from a
long-range perspective. Frequently, the child would work with one
teacher, usually located by the parents, for several years; that
teacher under-stood the child's progress and was familiar with his or
her understanding of the subject.

In the schools, by contrast, a teacher generally has a child for one
year only, and the group, not the individual, is the focus of
instruction, he commented.

Outside the schools, the talented child often participated in public
events--competitions, contests, recitals--that provided him with
benchmarks of his progress and gave him a sense of achievement. Few
schools offer similar opportunities, Mr. Bloom said, and many are not
sympathetic to those needs of talented children.

But, Mr. Bloom said, "schools do influence talent development, both
positively and negatively." However, the "positive" influence of
schools, he cautioned, was reported by only a small number of those in
his study.

All the study's subjects had attended primary and secondary school
and had widely differing experiences there. The subjects, he said, fell
into three broad categories.

'Completely Separate Spheres'

For the first group, "talent development and school were two almost
completely separate spheres." Both activities were very demanding on
the students' time, but with adjustments, they were able to succeed at
both.

The adjustments, however, were nearly always made by the student,
not the school. "It was clear that the adjustments minimized the
conflict," Mr. Bloom said, but did little to enhance either the child's
schooling or the development of his talent.

For the second group, Mr. Bloom said, schools had a negative
influence on the development of the child's exceptional talents. The
two had conflicting requirements that could not be resolved.

School, as a result, was something to be suffered through. The
student's talents were neither valued nor appreciated, and the child
became "an outsider", in the pejorative sense of the word. The vital
part of his life--the talent--remained wholly outside the school.

The most "encouraging" instances of successful interaction between
talented children and schools--which were also the smallest group of
reports by his subjects, said Mr. Bloom--involved those students whose
schools sought to enhance and encourage their talents. "We report very
few instances where talent development and school enhanced one
another," Mr. Bloom told those attending the conference.

Among the students in this group, Mr. Bloom said, many reported
having worked with a teacher in the school setting who made the subject
especially stimulating. Teachers and principals recognized these
students' commitment to their talent. Frequently, the students had
friends who shared the talent; some participated in public events in
the schools that enhanced their sense that their talents seem real and
important.

'Major Contrasts'

In short, Mr. Bloom said, there are "major contrasts" between the
environment that nurtured exceptional talents, and those of the
schools. The comparison, he said, may be regarded as "unfair" by
educators, but they may also find it useful to ponder the differences.
The University of Chicago scholar's three-year study was funded by the
Spencer Foundation of Chicago.

Vol. 01, Issue 13

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